My father left his oppressive prosperous Italian family (his father was a muralist who did many municipal projects including the Pennsylvania State dome) at 18. Italian family life seen from the outside seems loving, protective, and caring but from the inside is suffocating. Despite suffering ethnic prejudice (he was born in the late 19th Century) he saw what American life could be, freedom to create yourself in any way you choose. He loved America and wanted to be an American. He married an American woman who family reached back to colonial times. Though a New Englander, her father managed the family business in Charleston, SC and experienced a great deal of "anti-Yankee" prejudice. Consequently, I grew up without an ethnic identity. Our family was and is American. My wife is black. Actually, of West Indian heritage, which is in many ways very unlike African American history and identity. Her father was a Tuskegee Airman and eventually a New York City judge. Her mother, whose father was a doctor, was a math teacher and eventually a school principal in a very white Westchester district. My wife is an executive in the entertainment industry and was a highly placed exec at several of the major networks and studios. I am a writer-producer in movies and television and have been a studio executive. She identifies as African-American. I chose her to be my wife because our respective backgrounds seemed so similar and because we had so much in common. She is convinced that she was chosen for her initial position because of affirmative action and it left a mark on her. Affirmative action leaves a stain on a black person that is impossible to erase. No matter how great her achievement it is unearned. She once almost turned down a major promotion because she felt she couldn't handle it. I had to threaten to leave her if she didn't take it. She did and she thrived. Her boss was known as one of the most difficult execs in the business and she was the only one to keep her position. All her predecessors had been fired. I think identity is a trap. One does not choose your identity, someone else chooses it for you. It is their identification of your person that dictates who you are. Why accept it. It diminishes you and limits you. And the current manifestation of "identity", CRT ,is especially pernicious. Again, it is an adaptation of a Marxist, i.e. "class" identification, a white German theory of the Frankfort School. Why adopt that as a model. If racism in America is "Systemic" there is no escape from it and you're "Systemically" black. It is a dead end. Martin Luther King's approach was the correct one. It lifted everyone, white and black, to a higher level of moral justice insisting that blacks had the same rights and duties as all Americans and were equal in every way. Acceptance of racial identity as the summation of your being is capitulation to racism, the ultimate "internalization" of slavery.
"Italian family life seen from the outside seems loving, protective, and caring but from the inside is suffocating."
I have to laugh at the growing number of white Americans who find out that an ancestor (nearly always mulatto or mixed-white) crossed the racial caste line. They then whine that their "passing" ancestor deprived them of some mythical, wonderful "black" heritage. Where's that "white privilege" the liberals are always denouncing?
The point is that what may look attractive to the outsider may be hellish to those trapped inside. "Italian family life seen from the outside seems loving, protective, and caring but from the inside is suffocating." And the people accused of "passing for white" by blacks are ALSO white.
My father left his oppressive prosperous Italian family (his father was a muralist who did many municipal projects including the Pennsylvania State dome) at 18. Italian family life seen from the outside seems loving, protective, and caring but from the inside is suffocating. Despite suffering ethnic prejudice (he was born in the late 19th Century) he saw what American life could be, freedom to create yourself in any way you choose. He loved America and wanted to be an American. He married an American woman who family reached back to colonial times. Though a New Englander, her father managed the family business in Charleston, SC and experienced a great deal of "anti-Yankee" prejudice. Consequently, I grew up without an ethnic identity. Our family was and is American. My wife is black. Actually, of West Indian heritage, which is in many ways very unlike African American history and identity. Her father was a Tuskegee Airman and eventually a New York City judge. Her mother, whose father was a doctor, was a math teacher and eventually a school principal in a very white Westchester district. My wife is an executive in the entertainment industry and was a highly placed exec at several of the major networks and studios. I am a writer-producer in movies and television and have been a studio executive. She identifies as African-American. I chose her to be my wife because our respective backgrounds seemed so similar and because we had so much in common. She is convinced that she was chosen for her initial position because of affirmative action and it left a mark on her. Affirmative action leaves a stain on a black person that is impossible to erase. No matter how great her achievement it is unearned. She once almost turned down a major promotion because she felt she couldn't handle it. I had to threaten to leave her if she didn't take it. She did and she thrived. Her boss was known as one of the most difficult execs in the business and she was the only one to keep her position. All her predecessors had been fired. I think identity is a trap. One does not choose your identity, someone else chooses it for you. It is their identification of your person that dictates who you are. Why accept it. It diminishes you and limits you. And the current manifestation of "identity", CRT ,is especially pernicious. Again, it is an adaptation of a Marxist, i.e. "class" identification, a white German theory of the Frankfort School. Why adopt that as a model. If racism in America is "Systemic" there is no escape from it and you're "Systemically" black. It is a dead end. Martin Luther King's approach was the correct one. It lifted everyone, white and black, to a higher level of moral justice insisting that blacks had the same rights and duties as all Americans and were equal in every way. Acceptance of racial identity as the summation of your being is capitulation to racism, the ultimate "internalization" of slavery.
"Italian family life seen from the outside seems loving, protective, and caring but from the inside is suffocating."
I have to laugh at the growing number of white Americans who find out that an ancestor (nearly always mulatto or mixed-white) crossed the racial caste line. They then whine that their "passing" ancestor deprived them of some mythical, wonderful "black" heritage. Where's that "white privilege" the liberals are always denouncing?
Huh? I'm white. I thought that was clear. I don't understand your statement. Sorry.
The point is that what may look attractive to the outsider may be hellish to those trapped inside. "Italian family life seen from the outside seems loving, protective, and caring but from the inside is suffocating." And the people accused of "passing for white" by blacks are ALSO white.